The fall of a newborn baby into a toilet pipe in Jinhua, Zhejiang , was accidental and his mother will not be prosecuted, local officials said yesterday, adding that the boy had survived the ordeal.

The mother, 22 and unmarried, had kept her pregnancy secret and gave birth unexpectedly when she went to the lavatory on Saturday.

The newborn fell into the squat toilet and became stuck in the tube, police said earlier.

Firefighters and doctors spent nearly an hour taking a section of the 10-centimetre-diameter pipe apart piece by piece with pliers and saws before they could recover the boy, whose placenta was still attached, media reports said.

"Our investigations showed it was an accident," said a local police officer who declined to be named, confirming that the mother would not be prosecuted. She refused to give further details.

The incident triggered hundreds of thousands of comments on China's hugely popular weibo, services similar to Twitter, with users astonished by the circumstances and expressing good wishes for the baby.

From the time he was found until when he was taken out, the 2.3kg baby was stuck in the tube for two to three hours, authorities and media reports said.

In a video that went viral on the internet, officials were shown removing the pipe from a ceiling that was apparently just below the toilet and then, at the hospital, using pliers and saws to gently pull the pipe apart.

The baby suffered some cuts to his face and limbs and was put in an incubator at the Pujiang People's Hospital, reports said, where nurses dubbed him "Baby No59", after the machine's number.

The chief of the hospital, Wu Xinhong, said the infant was now healthy and ready to be released.

"His condition is good but his relatives have not come to pick him up yet," he said.

Police have said the mother is in serious condition due to complications from the delivery, and authorities are still looking for the baby's father.

Additional reporting by Associated Press

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as Baby's fall into toilet accidental, officials say